While England itself does not have an official national anthem, there are many songs which are considered to fill such a role. In most of the national sporting fixtures 'God Save the Queen', the British national anthem, is used.

In April 2008, Greg Mulholland called for the England national rugby league team to replace "God Save the Queen" with an English national anthem at the Rugby League World Cup (RL World Cup) to be held in Australia in autumn 2008[5] and on 28 April he put forward another EDM in the House of Commons, noting that Scotland and Wales who are also taking part in the RL World Cup, will all have their own national anthems, and therefore calling on England to use an English national anthem rather than the British national anthem, with the proposal that English rugby league fans should be given the chance to choose an English anthem.[6] However, God Save the Queen was used.

In 2000 a rendition of "Jerusalem" by Fat Les was adopted by the English Football Association as the England football team's official song for the UEFA Euro 2000 competition.[9] Jerusalem has been the ECB's official hymn[10] since 2003,[2] being played before the start of play each day of home test matches. Although God Save the Queen was the anthem sung by England players before games at ICC events and recent Ashes series.

Land of Hope and Glory has long been traditionally played amidst much flag-waving at the climax of the Last Night of the BBC Proms.

At international rugby league matches, England often sang Land of Hope and Glory as their national anthem (but since the 2005 internationals switched to God Save the Queen). The song was also used as the victory anthem of England at the Commonwealth Games[11] until Jerusalem was adopted in 2010. England has no official national anthem, and usually just adopts the United Kingdom's official anthem, God Save the Queen during sporting events, though there are calls for this to be changed.[12][13] A 2006 survey conducted by the BBC suggested that 55% of the English public would rather have Land of Hope and Glory than God Save the Queen as their national anthem.[14]

Other English patriotic songs which have been proposed as possible national anthems of England include traditional songs such as "Rose of England", an English patriotic song written by Ivor Novello in 1937 for his musical Crest of the Wave, and popularised by Vera Lynn. The flower to which the song's lyrics refer is one of England's national emblems, the Tudor Rose. Also, "There'll Always Be an England", an English patriotic song, written and distributed in 1940 and highly popular throughout World War II. It was composed and written by Ross Parker. The words were written by Hughie Charles, and the most popular version was sung by Vera Lynn. 1950s comedy duo Flanders and Swann premiered "Song of Patriotic Prejudice" (with refrain "The English...are best/I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest") in their At the Drop of Another Hat revue in London on 2 October 1963. Also proposed have been modern patriotic songs such as "A Place called England" written by English folk singer Maggie Holland, which won the Best Original Song award at the 2000 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards.[15]